Tag: Maui

On the Sunday, August 13th, 2023 edition of The Travel Guys… In the Travel News, Southwest is making a change to their boarding process and the travel industry is banding together to try and help the people in Maui recover. We've talked about air tags on the program more than once, but we're still pounding the table. This week, another story from a lady who ignored United when they told her they couldn't find her luggage. She knew where it was from the AirTag ping, so she went and got it. Time to put one of these gadgets in your bag? In Europe, you can now make phone calls in flight. Could that policy change be coming to the US? How will airline passenger feel about adding to the cacophony on planes? If you are renting a car to travel long distance, is it cheaper to rent an electric car? How about for around town? The answer is, it depends.

On the Sunday, April 23rd, 2023 edition of The Travel Guys… In the Travel News, we tell you about an uninhabited island in Scotland that's for sale, and if you are headed to Maui, you will need advance reservations to visit one of the island's most popular natural attractions. As travel demand starts to level off a bit, and Covid is mostly behind us, many hotels in popular destinations are changing their refund policies to be a lot less friendly than in recent times. Mark warns travelers to beware in our Smarter Traveler segment. Each year, the travel industry holds a lobbying event on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Mark attended and shares why lobbying for travel is generally more accepted on "The Hill." Since Thursday, Mark has been traveling Route 66 with a group of Sports Leisure Travelers. He offers some observations on places to see on the first part of the route, and tries to explain why this old highway is still so popular 97 years after its beginning.

On the Sunday, February 20th, 2022 edition of The Travel Guys… In the Travel News, if you are interested in buying an unfinished cruise ship, Getting Hong Kong, the parent company of “out of business” Crystal Cruises, has one for sale. The Global Dream, is still under construction in a German shipyard. If it is finished, it will hold 9,500 of your closest friends. The federal mask mandate will expire on March 18th. Will it be dropped, extended briefly, or given a longer extension? In our Smarter Traveler segment, we talk about buying tickets from “secondary-sellers” and what some of the unseen risks are in buying tickets on the open market. Mark escorted a dozen or so tours each year for his company, Sports Leisure Vacations. One of his favorite destinations is Hawaii, and he has a trip going in May to Maui and Kauai. He’ll share some of the highlights and tell you how you can join the small group if you wish. Theater is back on stage again in San Francisco. Our own Clayton Whitehead saw the premiere of another traveling Broadway show in San Francisco last week about Harry Potter and his gang and shares a review.

On the Sunday, July 18th, 2021 edition of The Travel Guys… In the Travel News, it's looking more and more like the Canadian border will open before the end of summer. Amtrak is investing some of our tax dollars in some new train sets and the Eiffel Tower joins the reopened attractions list in Europe. In our Smarter Traveler segment, we renew the discussion about smoking charges in rental cars and hotel rooms. Mark cautions against giving any reason to charge you. Errant cigarette packaging, or packaging from any other thing you smoke, will get you in trouble. You don't want to make it LOOK like someone may have smoked in the room. Charges like these are hard to reverse. Maui can't get the airlines to cut flights, so the mayor helped push through a 3% addition to the island hotel tax. It will provide for a variety of civic improvements, but it's not likely to cut the number of visitors to the islands. No major competitor has yet followed Hilton to the "housekeeping no longer included" pile. We'll keep watching. The project is called Wisdom Travels. It's about the travel stories of nine local North Natomas residents.